(The Coconut Telegraph is not published on Saturdays. January 5, 2013)

[“Hannibal killing 70,00 Romans in one day”] I hope I can use that trivia someday. I thought the death record for one day was Antitiem in the Civil War (only 40,000 Americans ). Which brings to mind where did they get those folks, think about it: “OK, troops, we’ll meet in a completely open field tomorrow morning of no particular value which we could march around and walk, run and shoot, bayonet each other till we see who can kill the most and the other retreats. Then we’ll move on and leave the field abandoned to go fight in another useless open field.” The Civil War must have been hell in the front states. They never took ground or kept it, just fought in open fields, brother killing brother.

[Phony Fish] Years ago I used to sell junk amberjack (not my snapper or grouper) to buy fuel and bait at the back door of the Black Swan / Cap’n Annies for their fish sandwich for $1 a pound head on. It’s what you call it, “fish dip”, “fish sandwich”, “all you can eat fish”.

[How Drunk Do You Have to Be]

(1) College student Courtney Malloy, 22, was rescued in November after getting stuck at about 1 a.m. trying to cut between two buildings in Providence, R.I. The space between City Sports and FedEx Kinko’s was 8 to 9 inches, said firefighters, who found Malloy horizontal and about 2 feet off the ground and unable to explain how she got there.

(2) Leslie Newton, 68, was pulled over by Florida Highway Patrol officers near St. Augustine in December while driving erratically. He also had a portion of a traffic sign embedded in his skull after colliding with it.

In both cases, officers said they believed the victims to be intoxicated.

[Current TV is now Al Goreeza] Al-Jazeera buys Current TV from Al Gore. Al-Jazeera spokesman Stan Collender said there are no rules against foreign ownership of a cable channel — unlike the strict rules limiting foreign ownership of free-to-air TV stations. He said the move is based on demand, adding that 40 percent of viewing traffic on Al-Jazeera English’s website is from the U.S. Link

[“Thomas Jefferson’s accomplishments”] Don’t forget he raised carcinogenic tobacco (a drug) and had sex and offspring with multiple slaves which picked the tobacco.

[Locals Have A New Cookbook] A cookbook for people that already cook a little. It shares ideas, substitutions, creative cooking, stories, pictures of the authors and a little about their life together. Keys “cookery” that will get you “out of the box”. Meri-Lynn and I finished our little cook book. It was a fun project. You can review a few pages if you like: Link

[What’s in a Name] Teen fights for right to her name, Blaer, which is banned in Iceland.

Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don’t question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee that has the power to say yea or nay. Link

[Instruments of Freedom and Protection] The horrifying lessons of history indicate that governments are capable of committing atrocities against their people. In every case these genocides began with gun-control.

Cognizant of government’s inherent tendency to fixate on grasping more power and control, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “It’s the right and duty of the people to be armed at all times”. Laws disarming honest citizens, declare that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people.

A government that fails to protect its citizens has no right to deprive them of the means to defend themselves. Bureaucracies aren’t under any legal obligation to protect and save life. A fact ignored by zealots and the media is that handguns are used by good people to prevent crimes and save lives on an average of 2.7 million times per year.

The sale and purchase of assault rifles (automatic firing) is illegal. This is a politically spun term designed to create fear and support for those who want to restrict private gun ownership. At present there are more than 20,000 laws on the books that regulate a citizen’s ‘right to bear arms’. A collective emphasis needs to be placed on crime-control, not on constitutional infringements.

I don’t like guns. Proficient in their use, I prefer activities that are more in line with the arts. However, it’s a blessing to know that if I so desire, I may purchase the commensurate means to protect myself.

A nation’s people who are subjugated, completely at the mercy of corrupted politicians, is unsettling. I’m comforted by those who are clearly intolerant of serving a despotic tyrant, capable of terminating life at random. Something like the president’s “Kill List”.

A reasonable means to resist Fascism must remain available, if we desire to maintain our freedom. It keeps the malfeasant leanings of government honest. As history has bore out, the founders of our nation knew the clear and present necessity of the 2nd Amendment.

Unfortunately, ideologues will be content to use the tragic deaths of Sandy Hook’s children to advance their political agenda, remaining unwilling to address the root cause of violence in America.

Thatched Keys home of long ago. The right way to live in the Keys. More … History of the Keys > Page 2

[Further Proof Marijuana Makes One Stupid] A 77-year-old Marathon man remained in the Monroe County Detention Center on Monday following his Saturday arrest for allegedly possessing around four ounces of marijuana.

Ironically, Michael Csernik, the one arrested, had called the Sheriff’s Office to complain about his neighbors, agency spokeswoman Becky Herrin said.

She said that earlier in the day, Deputy Anthony O’Dea was called to Csernik’s home in the Key RV Park after neighbors reported they believed he was selling drugs because “there were lots of vehicles coming and going,” Herrin said.

O’Dea couldn’t find Csernik so he left — but about an hour later, Csernik himself called the Sheriff’s Office and O’Dea returned.

Csernik reportedly told him he was upset because his neighbors were taking pictures of cars coming and going from his home, Herrin said. When O’Dea asked Csernik why he had so many people stopping by, “Csernik said he has a lot of friends,” she said.

O’Dea then asked Csernik for permission to search his trailer and Csernik reportedly said OK, signing a “Consent to Search” form. His 51-yea-old son also agreed to the search, Herrin said.

Inside, she said, O’Dea found three plastic bags filled with marijuana in the living room and seven more in the bedroom, along with a scale. Csernik had $1,363 in cash, and it was seized as being suspected drug money.

Csernik is charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell, possession of a felony amount of marijuana (more than 20 grams) and possession of drug paraphernalia. His son was not charged.

[Staph MRSA Cure] I was able to successfully treat and cure a patch of MRSA on my lower abdomen that resulted from a spider bite with Cuban Oregano. I did not want to have a chunk of my abdomen cut out so I tried this alternative home method. It was a closely monitored experiment because MRSA is nothing to play with and if a person does not see the wound expansion halt immediately, they should go directly to the nearest emergency room.

You cut and wash the leaves and mash them with a clean mortar and pestle or you can just stick them in a clean bowl and squash them with the back of a big clean serving spoon. Apply this watery poultice directly to the wound after cleansing with sterile saline solution and cover with a secure bandage. Change it daily, irrigating the wound with warm water to remove the last application of herb, exposing to 20 minutes of direct sunlight, then sterile saline, then replacing poultice and bandaging again.

It took about a month to be completely gone. It was a patch about 1 1/2″ by 2″. I have a white looking surface scar, but no missing chunk in a somewhat personal place.

There are many medicinal uses for this wonderful herb besides flavoring your favorite foods and since it’s so easy to propagate, every thinking man or woman should have some around. It’s like that “go to” aloe plant that Grandmom always kept around.

Not only tasty and aromatic, it has beautiful foliage and grows fiercely. There’s always plenty for pinching and the more you pinch, the more that grows.

I confess, I keep a little forest and periodically harvest and just throw the washed leaves into the blender, strain through a sterilized sieve into a clean bowl and freeze into cubes in an ice tray that I keep just for this purpose. I pop those cubes into a big zip lock and voila, quick addition to any dish I’m flavoring or quick medical treatment for any skin irritation or bite. I started doing this after I went into the Sugar Apple health food store and they wanted $24 for a 2 ounce bottle.

I got my first piece from a plant that was growing in the Winn-Dixie Plaza in the patch of greenery in between the steps in front of the Nail Salon underneath the Plumeria. There are other colonies out there just look around. There was a big patch down off Sugarloaf Shores Blvd. Once I got a free plant by asking on the Biz Baz. Most of your nurseries have it too if you want to pay for it.

Be sure and start some colonies of your own once you get a few pieces started. Just cut them and pop them in some water for a few days. This is a prolific herb. Sometimes you see it called, Spanish Thyme or Broadleaf Thyme or Mexican Mint even the Queen of Herbs. Every country that has this wild herb abounding has tried to claim it. It also comes in an eye-pleasing variegated variety although I prefer the common plain.

I hope this helps somebody but like any advice, please take with a grain of salt (good sense). If you don’t see the wound improving? Get immediate medical help. Make no mistake. MRSA can be a killer. Even if it doesn’t kill you it will attempt to colonize in your body. It’s prolific too!

Tomas Jefferson also fostered the Lewis-Clark expedition to the Pacific, establishing a training school for the participants so they would know what they were seeing and how to keep records of it.

When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Recently there was a human stampede in Ivory Coast that killed 60 people, young and old. This is not the first time that human stampedes have occurred. Thousands of people have been trampled to death at events that attract large crowds. We need to stop these senseless deaths and it can be done by banning all large gatherings. Stop them now before hundreds more die. Video

I rolled my pension over and over and over. Now I have no idea where the hell it is.

[Connections] When eating fruit, think of the person who planted the tree. We are grateful for those who have gone before us; opening doors and opening pathways, laying a foundation for our lives. Each generation has the opportunity to further the knowledge and progress of humanity. May the decisions we make and the trees we plant be useful to those who follow us.

[Guns] I grew up with guns, was taught as a child how to use them, take care of them, and taught my daughters the same way. As an adult I have hunted from Alaska to Louisiana, and guided 4-H members through hunters education classes. The game I did indeed intend to kill. It was delicious. My small arms I keep to be able to kill, not necessarily to do so. There ARE crazies out there, and they’re not all in political positions. One of the reasons I live in the Keys is that there seem to be fewer of them. Characters definitely, crazies no. Unfortunately, it seems one side is scared to death of them, and the other side is rabidly for them, although I suspect they would have banned guns years ago if women had been allowed to use them to protect their reproductive rights.

We need a common sense party desperately to represent the middle who are the majority.

No Photoshop here, just nature mimicking a nuclear explosion.

[How Much More Money Down The Drain] Yesterdays’ Citizen featured an article telling us that not only can we expect to pay for a $5,000,000.00 judgment against the County in the No Name Key Galleon Bay takings case, but that we, the county taxpayers, have so far paid out over $857,000.00 for legal fees in that losing battle.

What we’d now like the Citizen to tell us, as the County won’t, is: 1) How much have we spent (and yes, please include all the outside attorneys the County has flown in) trying to prevent utilities to developed homes on that same island? 2) And, how much will we be spending trying to stop central sewers to North Key Largo?

[Most Carnage in One Day] On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the Atomic Bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay,[16] directly killing an estimated 80,000 people.

334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March (“Operation Meetinghouse”), with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That awkward moment when Fox News is outraged that Al Jazeera bought Current TV and then the Saudi prince who owns part of Fox says to shut up.

We are on our way to get our new Westie puppy. I am naming her Peace. We lost our beloved Olde English Sheepdog, Scoobie Doo2, he was 12 1/2, in March. I need some Peace. Hope she made you smile.

[Coconut Telegraph] Even though I recently moved from the Keys where I lived for over 34 years I still want to be in touch and be able to read all the dirt as well as all the crazy crap still going on.

Could you publish some info on the person with the expensive MRSA infection. I would like to make a donation to help with expenses in memory of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victims anonymously. Maybe others would also be interested. It could happen to any of us!

Sign up for the Big Pine Bocce League winter season is on Monday, January 7th at the BigPineCommunityPark at 6:00pm. The cost is $100 per team to sign up, plus $20 per person on the team. We will be playing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights this year, so get a team together and come on out. We still have room available for new teams to play on Tuesday and Thursday. Come and have some fun! Any questions Bulletin Board

[“Inaccurate fuel gauge”] One way to look at it is when your gauge registers empty, you still have enough left to get home.

NY has off track betting and it makes money for the state. It would be wonderful if FL had off track betting also.

I just read the MRSA cure and am curious because I swear that in the past, at least in the 1980’s, Vaseline sold a concoction of a iodine-Vasoline combo in a dark jar pre-mixed and pre-measured. Is it not available any longer? I Googled and couldn’t find it.

What is happening with the BarkPark on Big Pine? The trash barrels have not been emptied in several weeks. They are so full it might take a fork lift to do the job. If it isn’t taken care of soon the odor will keep everyone away. The park is too good to let this happen.

Watch Jupiter gradually creeping toward a better lineup between Aldebaran and the Pleiades. It won’t quite get there, however. Instead it will gradually stop and reverse direction at the end of January, just short of forming a straight line. (The 10° scale is about the width of your fist held at arm’s length.)

By the time I get thin fat will be back in!

[Gun Debate] The poster exclaimed that if you are in awe or that you were afraid of guns per-se, you have no business in the gun debate. The answering poster said that statement was irrational. I beg to differ with the answering poster.

The problem I believe lies in the word afraid. Anyone in his right mind that has a gun fired at him would certainly at that moment experience fright, however there is another group that is frightened and in awe of guns reflected by their opinions just because they are guns. Judging by the content of the language of a large segment of gun protesters these groups may be more prevalent than many believe. Opinions such as these certainly would preclude reasoned thought in a debate over firearms.

[Captain Doom and Gloom] “Two races on US1” So much for getting where one wants to go with these assholes blocking Route 1 for a few days.

Suggest giving them brooms, paint brushes, hammers and tools to fix the poor people’s homes instead of wasting all that energy masturbating on our roads! Or how about renting the Old Dog Track for a few days? Enough of this BS crap, People have lives to live!

“Hannibal’s tactics are still taught at military colleges” One of the many reasons the human race ain’t gunna make it. We like to kill off one another just like ants and insects. The insanity will never be cured!

Our retired seniors Living on a fixed income receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour hundreds of billions of dollars and tons of food to foreign countries. We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.

America: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without needed medication and mentally ill without treatment. Yet they have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships and planes lining up with food, water, tents clothes, bedding, doctors and medical supplies. Imagine if the government gave us the same support they give to other countries.

Boehner is back in charge again. The Republican Party leaders have pissed all over conservative values & have decided to help make president Obama’s dream of fundamentally transforming the United States of America come true. May God ‘not’ have mercy on their souls.

Everybody is still whining, “We must all work together” for the good of the country. Which boils down to “give Obama whatever he wants” because he won. Bush won two terms too. Yet the Demo-krauts challenged Bush on most everything for 8 years. There were no cries of, “We must all work together” for the good of the country then. No media degraded Democrats for not giving up their principles. There were lots of “FU Bush” though from all over. America you deserve what you get for allowing the double standard to continue.

Yessir, we’ve got big trouble in River City. Our liberal politico’s and their assault dogs, the media moan and wail that R.C. and our nation is awash in homicides wherein a rifle was the murder weapon…To the left, the villain du jour is the assault rifle. The FBI keeps stats on all sorts of criminal justice info, but they can’t tell us exactly what an assault rifle is so we have no way of knowing how many rifles that were really assault rifles or just looked like assault rifles were used as a murder weapon. Simply put, that means that cousin Fred’s single shot .22 rifle, or uncle Larry’s lever action .30.30 deer rifle, all reside in the same category as do the so called assault rifles. So there you have it Deer Friends, if you believe the Left, rifles are an existential threat to our children and even our society. To their tender sensibilities, assault rifles are the worst of the worst and must be banned from the face of God’s green earth. We must save the children and preserve our maiden’s safety in their beds.

Fortunately our FBI releases stats on all sort of criminality each year. So we can now go about proving just how dangerous is the assault rifle to civilization as we know it.

If you’ll take the time to go the FBI web site and browse through their various reports, you’ll learn that rifles were the weapon used in 323 of homicides in 2011. Perhaps you might be interested in some of the other means and methods of murder in 2011. Knives or other cutting instruments were used in 1684 murders in ’11, that’s more than 5 times as many as with rifles. Blunt objects were used in about 496 murders. We must not ever forget that the dreaded and uber deadly “hands, fists, feet. etc.” accounted for more than twice as many murders (726) than did rifles, (323).

And so Deer Friends there you have it, the facts from the FBI are there for all to see. Perhaps posters from the left can explain to this Olde Farts exactly why civilian rifles that have a simply have a cosmetic appearance similar to military weapons must be banned. I suspect that no one can, because to our liberal friends, optics and feelings trump fact and reason.

I suspect that the left’s angst against a private possession of firearms is because that Constitutional Right is a threat to the liberal theory of governance. It seems to me that when weapons are in hands of the governed, it poses a real threat and/or impediment to those who govern or seek to subjugate. That’s precisely why our founders chose to guarantee our right to possess firearms.

Part 2. Deer Friends, Thanks for the kind words. Here’s the facts. In late November a wisdom tooth became infected. I began a course of antibiotics that didn’t work. I started a second course and then had the tooth removed. Three days after the tooth removal I had complete knee replacement surgery. The replacement was a total success, very little pain, up and walking without a walker or cane in about three days.

Then the crap hit the conveyor. I developed a “raging” internal infection (Dr’s words). To save you all the drama, I’ve still got it, and I think that I’ve run out the rope here in the Keys. It’s possible that as you read this I will be in the specialist’s office in Ft.Laud. I’ve missed posting, but I’ve simply not had the interest until today. Your kind words lit a fire, thanks. Respectfully submitted FTR